Although historically turtles did nest in Bermuda, until just recently there had been no records of turtles nesting here for over a century. Our ancestors wiped out the large, sexually mature turtles that would have been our resident nesting ones.

Instead, Bermuda serves as a sort of primary, middle and senior school for turtles born in the Caribbean and Latin America (the Sargasso Sea serves as a kindergarten/preschool). They feed her on our seagrass meadows and once they reach a certain size they head south to the Caribbean and eventually, once reaching sexual maturity, head back to their nesting beaches (which I think are mostly in Central America).

A year or so ago we marked the first nesting of a turtle in over a century (that we know of), which is a pretty big deal.

Bermuda actually passed one of the first ever conservation laws in the world, I think around 1620, to protect our turtles, due to the heavy exploitation of them in the early years of our settlement. Unfortunately we didn’t know their life history too much at the time – it protected the small turtles but not the sexually mature ones, which were our resident nesting turtles. So we wiped out the ‘locals’ but we are still an important site for turtles for the western Atlantic.

I agree that it would be great to have more enforcement of our marine laws. Unfortunately, the resources don’t seem to be allocated to it so far. Perhaps this is something that can change with enough pressure?

More turtles have been killed in the past 10 years appearances in Courts for many marine offences; literally.

Enjoy the AC.

Hurricane season ends in November.

What has been done in other AC venues and what were the outcomes? Statistics? Results? Long-term effects on marine life? This race has gone on 34 times before – give us some history on damage / successes with marine life.

I have known Stuart for years and I appreciate the hell out of BEST but for crying out loud…between BEST and that guy over at Greenrock …give me a frigging break..!